| Product: |
Kill Baby Kill (DVD) |
| Date: |
01/09/08 (119 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: A very scary film
Disadvantages: Its low budget is a bit too obvious at times
A review of just the film. A DVD costs £6 on amazon, although my copy is part of the highly recommended Mario Bava boxset, which is an extremely reasonable £13.
This is an Italian horror film from 1966, and might be director Mario Bava's best gothic horror. It's an unusually scary film considering its age and budget (and ignore the awful title which makes it sound like some kind of Russ Meyer girl-gang movie. The Italian title, Operation Fear, is just as bad).
In the early years of the 20th century people in a small Italian town are dying, apparently as the result of a curse. A rational doctor and inspector arrive in town, determined to find the real cause of the deaths. But the ghostly evidence is overwhelming, and it soon becomes a question of survival.
As scary ghost films go, this is up there with the best (Ju-On, The Haunting, Blair Witch, Ghostwatch, Whistle And I'll Come To You). The ghost in this film - and I'm not spoiling anything here, she turns up right from the start - is a really creepy-looking little girl with a white ball. A sudden face looming outside a window is scary enough at the best of times; when it's a little girl with a properly evil grin it becomes perhaps the most frightening thing ever. Her ghostly giggle could be a bit freakier than it is, but on the whole she's one of the most unsettling things in any film. They managed to find a kid with really bizarre looking eyes to play her, too. One scene might well have inspired bits of The Shining, and even when the girl isn't around, sometimes her ball is in evidence, bouncing off things and generally freaking me out.
A good ghost needs a good haunted house, and the Villa Graps is a *great* haunted house. It's as gothic as they come, with suits of armour, cobwebs and terrifying portraits. The candle-holders in the shape of arms are a bit tacky, though, and stolen from another film (I can't remember which, off the top of my head). The hero finds himself running in panic through the same room over and over again, a truly nightmarish sequence, although the never-ending-spiral-staircase bit is let down by poor effects.
And the village itself is a great horror location. It seems to have been a combination of location work (they found some nicely decrepit ruins) and studio sets (the graveyard swirling with obligatory dry ice). Most of the film takes place during the course of one night, and the way the streets are shot at odd angles evokes silent Expressionist horror. Bava's films are always worth seeing because of the director's incredible visual sense. There are some nicely uncanny plot details, and the villagers have a credible, well-realised set of superstitions (such as having to embed a coin in the heart of a corpse to stop it from rising again).
The music is also good, ranging from traditional, rather hysterical horror music, through the almost obligatory music-box style tinkling you get whenever scary children appear in horror films, through to more modern bass lines. It's used very well, with otherwise innocuous scenes being creepied up a treat by having some menacing music thrumming away in the background.
The acting is OK, with some striking looking performers. Although Bava's budgets often stretched to importing stars like Boris Karloff or Christopher Lee, here he's working with an entirely Italian cast. They all seem to have been dubbed in post production (which almost always happens in Bava films), so it's hard to judge their performances, especially since I don't speak Italian. But they act scared well enough. The doctor, our hero, looks like a prizefighter, but does the required man of science having to question his world view stuff well enough. (Why are they always referred to as 'men of science' in horror films, I wonder, rather than just 'scientists'?) There are plenty of pretty ladies around (although it probably doesn't do to get too attached to any of them), although sadly no nudity. (Well, you see a lady's naked back, but in an ideal world that would have been swiftly followed by a long, lingering look at her front, and that doesn't happen.)
This is a very cheap film, but for the most part transcends its budget. There's the occasional wobbly pillar, and one corpse is having very obvious trouble keeping his eyes from moving. Some of the plot revelations at the film's climax are perhaps a bit silly, but they don't matter too much. Like most great ghost stories, this is about the mood it creates rather than the story.
This is an amazing example of spooky cinema. It makes great use of frightening noises (there's a moaning noise that might be the wind and might be something else, which is particularly effective). It had me jumping at any slight movement on the screen; it really keeps you on your toes. It's a 15 certificate; there's very little blood or violence, but the overall mood of the film is one of oppressive dread that might be too much for a child. My copy is in Italian with subtitles. This is a great little horror film, a real hidden gem. Highly recommended.
Summary: A classic Italian ghost movie.
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